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JEDPL Reviews: Total Drama Island
There are a f***ton of animated shows and films to review, so little time! Right now, I could be drinking cold packs of Mountain Dew while providing commentary for programs such as Teen Titans, Ren & Stimpy, Accel World (an anime I'm currently in the process of watching), and even damn The Nightmare Before Christmas. The Nightmare. Before. F***ing! CHRISTMAS!!! But... I'm not doing that today. Instead, I want to review THIS show; the one show that, in all honesty, isn't one of my favorites. Only one word must be uttered: Canada. {laughs} Hello, my fantastic children that are not of the corn... sadly. The Extreme Conquerer, Ouroburos, is here again to ridiculously entertain you with his, sort of, half-assed reviews that usually don't go a lot in depth and whatnot. Seriously, I must be one of the worst reviewers walking among this planet! To be fair, at least I don't overexaggerate as much as your professional critics and whiny fanbases, whose opinions are, of course, like assholes... No disrespect, Roger Ebert. I hardly knew ye, Mr. Ebert, but rest in peace. That man died a month and thirteen days ago... We definitely lost a legend. Speaking of "resting in peace", Jeff Hanneman of the band Slayer passed away almost three weeks ago. Dude, losing badasses is both memorable and... well, depressing as all hell. Anyway, I'm completely getting off track here on this frenetic Friday, which is the day Fry and Frylock are worshipped! Ladies and gentleman, I'm about to review... {gulp} Total Drama Island. So before I really get this show on the road, I'd like to point out that when I made my Total Drama prediction, I had at least one or two unneccessary, if not justified, comments. Why? On that article's "About the Show" section, I did nothing but bitch about how stupid the franchise was. You won't really see something like that on the page now, since I recently made some proper changes, but check the history of that prediction of mine. You might be offended by what you read! Truthfully, I do not hate the series. Nor do I hate programming made my Canadians! Statements like "Canada Sucks" are made for Peter Griffin, but not the leader of Anima-Predictview Wiki! Total Drama Island is a 27-episode Canadian animated series created by Jennifer Pertsch and Tom McGillis; {sarcastic} wow, a duo making a cartoon sounds absolutely new to me! The installment first aired in Canada via Teletoon on July 8, 2007 and then in American via Cartoon Network on June 5, 2008; with editing, mind you! It is a parody of the reality game show Survivor, which I have heard of vaguely. The plot of the show revolves around the titular reality show, Total Drama Island, in which twenty-two teenagers are competing in elimination-based events at a "crappy summer camp", Camp Wawanakwa, a fictional island in the "God knows where" part of Muskoka, Ontario. At the end of nearly every challenge, the campers gather 'round the campfire to see who gets voted off the island. I forgot to mention that at the beginning of the show, the twenty-two campers are put in groups of eleven: the "Screaming Gophers" and the "Killer Bass", which would be names to run away from really fast... I guess. By Episode 14, the teams merge, in which it becomes individual challenges later on. Whoever wins this season is rewarded $100,000; for those that did not realize yet, subsequent seasons bump the prize up by $900,000 more bucks, bringing it all up to $1,000,000 DOLLARS!!! Now that that's out of the way for the time being, let's take a look at some of the show's cast. The host of Total Drama Island is none other than Chris McLean, an egotistical guy who's got the looks, hamminess, and Jeff Probst mannerisms down right from the start! He is assisted by Chef Hatchet (or just Chef); to sum it up, Chef is either Black Dynamite or Mr. T going bald and donning the uniform of your typical... chef. Yeah, let's go with that! Pretty badass, in my opinion. We also have some of the contestants, like Gwen, for example: a Goth girl with a penchant for sketching. Or how about Harold? A Napolean-inspired geek who acts like he's cool, but in reality, he's a nerd who goes on about shit no one else on the show really cares for other than, of course, himself. What makes him annoying is that , for the most part, he doesn't go through a lot of development and is practically worthless; sabotaging the votes in Episode 12, however, makes me wanna give Harold credit. Messing with Duncan's lovelife, Courtney, was so unexpected of him, yet satisfying! Overall, I suppose not a lot of the characters stand out except for three I'm about to mention: Owen, Heather, and DJ. Owen is, in the way I'll put it, Chris Farley in flash animation form! On top of being funny (if a bit on the retarded side), this dude surprisingly won the first season, and I have nothing to complain about that. Heather is another personal favorite of mine; acts like a cold-hearted bitch? Check. Hot? Super check. Master of manipulation? C-H-E-C-K! Heather is the epitome of the Queen B, and it remarkably shows! Last but not least, DJ. Not only is he your average gentle giant, DJ's also quite frightened when it comes to anything innocuous. Pit him against Stuart Little and see the outcome for yourself, folks! As for the rest of the campers, not a lot does this reviewer have to say; Tyler sucks at sports, Lindsay's a buxom Blonde, Duncan's an ex-convict and bully to Harold, Geoff's a party-hard fellow who wears a cowboy hat (for whatever ducking reason, we will never know why), Ezekiel's a literal-minded misogynist, and Courtney's an uptight bimbo who's more focused on bragging about her CIT status and winning than anything else... yes, that includes hooking up with a delinquent. HOLY BLUE PEEPS WHITEY DRAGON PHAT FUDGE-COATED MEGA SUPER SHIT!!!!! Total Drama Island's humor varies: at times, it can be considered on the consistent side, and for other instances, it's so repetitive and inconsistent you wonder what the hell is even going on at the time! Most of the comedic moments stem from the more goofiest of campers... like with Owen, whether he's naked, farting, or LITERALLY chewing the scenery. {laughs} Episode 12 has another gag: as part of Chef's "Brutal Boot Camp", the teens dance like the zombies from Michael Jackson's "Thriller". I love when shit like that gets referenced! {laughter} Oh, my God... I could go on forever, but there's a limit, and what good would this review be without flaws being pointed out? {audience boos} SHUT YOUR PIEHOLES!!! {audience shuts the hell up} I. Thought. So... First of all, I would like to criticize the fact that the Total Drama series as a whole is animated in Flash. I HATE Flash... no, not the Flash from the DC Universe, but Flash animation. With cheap animation and rather easy-to-draw character designs at points, sticking with One Piece as opposed to preferring something similar to maybe Adventure Time would be this user's recommendation. Granted, those are two radically different shows made in different countries (one's American and one's Japanese), but I go by what I stand for. TDI suffers from at least one problem I mentioned earlier. Seriously, go over to the Total Drama Wiki and see how many pieces of fanart you can spot. Again, this isn't so much hard as it is obnoxious to look at! The audio presentation, thank God, is, at the very least, more lenient. The music fits decently with most of the drama that unfolds and is So Okay, It's Average. The theme song ("I Wanna Be Famous"), which was later reused for Action, World Tour, and Revenge of the Island so far, veers between instant earworm and annoyance overload. See these lyrics: I wanna live close to the sun, Go pack your bags, 'cause I've already won, Everything to prove, nothing in my way I'll get there one day. Cause, I wanna be famous! Now that's what I call cheesy. Not cheesy as in "macaroni & cheese" cheesy, but... you should get the idea. If it's not the sound of the theme music that's bugging you, then eight bucks says that the lyrics are the problem. The voice acting? Since it's a voice cast residing in Ontario, you'd think my words would be harsh; understandably, in my opinion, it's because of Bakugan, Spider Riders, and the Beyblade franchise that the VAs can't exactly be taken seriously. But for Total Drama Island... the voice talent is actually pretty good. Christian Potenza as the host is a whole lotta fun, Megan Fahlenbock as Gwen really is better to hear than her performance as Rogue in that one X-Men video game, and Brian Froud as Harold is a guaranteed hoot! Everyone else does their part just fine, as I caught no signs of overacting or underacting. Final verdict Overall, Total Drama Island is really nothing special. The comedy ranging from time to time, the execution of Flash, and the theme song are TDI's weakest points, but the show's highlights include the voice acting, some of the characters, and concept... They're not half-bad in the slightest. This is Ouroburos signing out, wishing you a fantastic Friday and all! The "Total Drama Marathon"'s not finished yet, because two-and-a-half weeks from now, I will be moving on to Total Drama Action, the second season of this acclaimed franchise! Pros *The conceptualization was audacious at best. *Character voices are definitely entertaining; they may not be classic, but they're certainly great. *Some of the contestants themselves have interesting personalities. Cons *Varying humor. *Oh God, the theme song! If you wanna be famous, start writing better lyrics! *The animation is somewhat of a turn-off, being that it's: 1) Flash, and 2) Affecting the character designs. Category:Review